


The Transformative Affair of the Decaying Typescript

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27879754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: An unsatisfactory dinner early in Peter and Harriet's relationship at least throws up an intriguing problem.
Relationships: Harriet Vane/Peter Wimsey
Comments: 36
Kudos: 109
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Transformative Affair of the Decaying Typescript

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valderys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/gifts).



> This takes place somewhere between Strong Poison and Have His Carcase. 
> 
> Anything that sounds like it might be a quotation probably is one.

The evening had been an exercise in compromises and, as all compromises are, profoundly unsatisfactory for both parties. Lord Peter Wimsey had insisted on taking Miss Vane to dinner. Miss Vane had insisted on going to a place where she could look upon the bill without flinching, whoever was going to pay it.

Consequently, they were partaking of over-cooked, over-oiled macaroni in a cellar somewhere in Bloomsbury, swathed in a veil of cigarette smoke and crammed between unsung, unwashed luminaries of literary London. Wimsey had ordered the least depressing-sounding wine on the list the harrassed-looking waitress recited, and still categorised it as ‘cruelty to brute beasts’.

Still, she was too proud, and he too well-mannered, to express regret or recrimination, and by dint of making the best of things they contrived to conduct a civilised conversation.

‘One might as well get it out of the way sooner rather than later,’ Wimsey said, with no greater hope than he had had of the wine: ‘ _Would_ you marry me?’

Harriet sighed. ‘She must answer yes or no?’

‘Oh, no, John, no, John, no, John, no. Quite so. What shall we talk about instead?’

‘High life. Or low life. Which have you been seeing?’

‘A little of both.’ He embarked on a summary of the investigation he was at present involved in; Harriet listened, putting in the occasional question.

‘So will they arrest the Briggs man?’ she asked when he had finished.

‘Not if I can help it.’ An unfamiliar look of purpose shaded his face, and Harriet did not quite know what to say.

Into their local silence fell a piercing, querulous complaint: ‘I can’t write without her.’

Harriet had her back to the man, and restrained herself from turning to see; Wimsey did not look up, but there was a tightened, anticipatory line to his posture.

‘Oh, come now, old man, I’m sure you can.’ This was the complainant’s companion, a nondescript, fair-haired man with a nondescript suit and an appalling tie, clothed in a pervasive aura of embarrassment.

‘I can’t. Damn the woman, she knows I can’t get anything on paper if I’m constantly distracted by the char and the postman. I rely on her for all that. But that’s not the worst of it. Wait until you hear what she’s done to me.’

‘Oh, come now,’ said the embarrassed friend again.

‘I must tell you before she gets here.’ This time he ploughed on without waiting for encouragement or remonstrance. ‘Well, as you know, she finished typing _The Glue Pot_ and then she left. Goodness knows she had no cause to. What did I do? What could I do? Just sent the manuscript off to Pocock and Gardner and tried to start working on the next book.

‘Well, the first I knew of it was a hurry-up from Pocock, enquiring ever so civilly if I’d finished _The Glue Pot_ yet. And that came as a surprise, since I’d wrapped it up with my own hands and taken it to the post office myself.’

Harriet withdrew a little mirror from her pocket, opened it, and upon looking into it found that there was nothing the matter with her hair, and that she recognised the ill-used writer: the brown hair swooping down across the forehead, the intense eyes. His suit was a loud yellow-and-chocolate houndstooth pattern; she thought she might borrow it for Robert Templeton.

The embarrassed friend asked, ‘So who had lost it? Did you find out?’

‘Well. This is the curious thing. Vera must have done it, but I can’t tell how.’

There was a glint in Wimsey’s eye; by mutual consent, he and Harriet both fell silent and did their best to appear absorbed in the task of slicing up the costolette d’agnello. It was not difficult to make a convincing show of this.

‘Lost it?’ the embarrassed friend asked.

‘More than that. You see, Pocock found the manuscript. But it wasn’t the one I’d packed up. It was the, ah, the original, with Vera’s emendations. He called me in to show me. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. Goodness knows one can’t make the creative process look tidy, but one likes to present some semblance of it to one’s publisher.’

‘You think Vera swapped them over?’

‘She must have done. Who else would have done a thing like that to me?

‘What about that woman who does for you?’

‘Why should she? No, it must have been Vera.’

‘But how could she have done it, if she’d already gone by the time you wrapped it up?’

‘That,’ said the great writer, ‘is the question. I’ve gone over it and over it and I can’t see. She gave her key back to me, but of course she might have had it copied before she did that. But I’ve hardly been out – you know how I get when an idea strikes me – and anyhow I took the thing straight to the Post Office. Pocock showed me the paper it came in, and it was the one I’d addressed.’

‘Perhaps you could ask her when she arrives,’ the friend said. There was the faintest suggestion of mockery in his tone.

‘Anyway,’ said the first man, his face grim, ‘I’ve got to get her back. I can’t write without her. She’s proved that with her little stunt, if nothing else.’

The arrival of a large and noisy party, with the attendant scraping of tables and chairs and good-natured recriminations, made it impossible to hear any more of the conversation, but by the same token offered the opportunity to discuss it discreetly.

Peter murmured, ‘You know him?’

‘Yes, he’s George Hurthill.’

‘Oh, the _Rivulets_ man. Well, it would be a pity if he never wrote anything else, certainly.’

She flushed. ‘Phil used to argue with him about poetry and prose, and which was the purer form of literature. It was rather tedious.’

‘Form for form’s sake. I see. And do you know this Vera?’

‘I know who she is, though I’ve never met her. Vera Farland. She lives with him, types for him, and does an awful lot of work on his books – at least, she did. I’m not surprised he wants her to come back.’

‘Whatever she did with his manuscript.’

‘Quite. That is, assuming it was her, and I don’t see who else it could have been. And if one assumes that she _didn’t_ have a key, it must have happened somewhere between Hurthill’s posting it and Pocock’s opening it. But as he said, the Post Office could hardly have swapped it.’

‘No, servants of the state, servants of business; it seems unlikely.’

Hurthill had raised his voice again. ‘She’s late, damn her.’

‘Perhaps she isn’t going to come,’ the embarrassed friend suggested hopefully. ‘Really, George, I don’t know why you asked me here.’

‘No more do I,’ Hurthill snarled. ‘All you’ve done is ask ridiculous questions.’

‘Well, I like that!’ He folded his arms. ‘Shall I ask you another one? What will you do if she doesn’t come? Or if she does, but she won’t go back with you?’

‘Oh, she will,’ Hurthill muttered. ‘She will.’

Wimsey looked troubled. He lowered his voice. ‘It seems to me that the gentleman is disposed to be unpleasant.’

‘One ought to warn her. If only one knew who she was. Perhaps she isn’t coming. I shouldn’t blame her.’

Wimsey laid a quiet hand over hers and darted his glance sideways, towards the steep staircase that led down from the street into the body of the restaurant.

A woman in a short coat and a fawn-coloured hat stood at the top, one hand on the iron knob, surveying the company beneath. It seemed to take her a little while to find the party she was looking for; and then, when she found him, she still hesitated for a second or two before squaring her shoulders and beginning to descend the stairs.

‘Yes, I think you’re right. That must be her. I think I’d better… Do you mind?’

‘No, of course not.’

Harriet caught up her bag and threaded her way between the tables and chairs. The bottom of the staircase was shielded by a large screen; it was possible, she thought, that Hurthill and his friend had not seen Vera Farland come in, and therefore she might be able to intercept her without their knowing.

She met her at the bottom of the stairs, a slip of a woman with red hair curling around a tired, heart-shaped face. ‘Miss Farland, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but… I’m sorry. I don’t know you.’

‘Harriet Vane.’

‘Ah, of course. We’ve never met – have we?’

‘No, not until now.’ She ploughed on. ‘You’ll think it dreadfully rude of me, I’m afraid, but I thought that if it were me I’d want someone to tell me.’

‘Oh?’ The expression was surprised but not hostile.

‘George Hurthill’s here, and he’s in a filthy mood. He’s talking very loudly about how he’s going to get you back.’

‘Is he! Well, we’ll see about that.’ Miss Farland looked back the way she had come, then peered into the gloom of the restaurant. Harriet retreated as far into the corner of the stairwell as possible, in order to present less of an obstacle to the operation of the establishment.

While Miss Farland hesitated, the stair was blocked by the conjunction of a foursome attempting to come in and a party of eight or ten attempting to leave, and the racket seemed to be drawing some attention. Harriet glanced at Miss Farland’s face: she was wide-eyed and pale.

‘I shouldn’t have come… I see now that it was a mistake.’

Pressing further into the restaurant seemed too irrevocable a step. But if she were to leave now it was inevitable that Hurthill would see her. With a sigh, Harriet suggested to Miss Farland that they take refuge in that traditional sanctuary of the lady whose dinner companion turns out to be less pleasant company than she might have hoped: the lavatory.

There was not really room for two; the smell was insanitary; and sooner or later somebody else would want it.

Harriet pushed up the sash window, looked outside to see what they would be stepping onto, and scrambled out. Miss Farland followed her.

The owner of the restaurant was leaning on the frame of the kitchen door, watching with mingled amusement and concern. ‘Any trouble with the gentlemen, signorine?’

Harriet straightened her skirt in some consternation. ‘Oh, Ettore, hullo. No – that is, mine has very pretty manners, and Miss Farland’s don’t know she’s here yet.’

He nodded, broodingly. ‘Any trouble, you let me know, and we won’t let them in again.’

Poor Peter! Harriet thought, surprising herself. It seemed unlikely that he would regret any exclusion from this establishment overmuch, but he would hardly care to be thought of as a nuisance. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom of the yard, she made out a couple of tea-cases that looked hardly more splintery and uncomfortable than the seats inside.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Tell me all about it.’

Miss Farland sat down next to her. ‘It rather sounds as if you already know,’ she said. ‘I left George six weeks ago. He’s badgering me to go back to him.’

‘To help him write his next book. By the way, he seems rather angry about the manuscript that went to Pocock and Gardner.’

Miss Farland grinned. ‘I’m not surprised. That’s partly why I would rather like to see him – and partly why I wouldn’t. I didn’t feel that he was appreciating my contribution as he might have done. And I’m not really in the mood to grovel.’

Harriet said, ‘It’s terribly soul-destroying, in my experience.’

‘Mm.’ Miss Farland clasped her hands: the night was not warm. ‘I wish I’d done what you did – oh! I didn’t mean… That is, I wish I’d had the honesty to write my own books under my own name.’

‘How much of _his_ books did you write?’

‘Truthfully? Most of them.’ Then, defiantly, ‘Oh, the essential idea was always his, and it was always a good one. He was good at form and structure, and he’d always write a couple of stunningly brilliant lines in each chapter, but he used to lose interest, and so I’d fill in the gaps. I don’t believe he’d ever finish anything, left to himself.’

‘I always thought –’ Harriet was beginning, when she was interrupted by a low whistle from the street above. ‘Peter?’

‘Stand in the trench, Achilles, flame-capped, and shout for me. I thought you might care to know that those blighters have gone. Our friend with the tie persuaded Mr Hurthill that you weren’t coming.’

She glanced at Miss Farland. ‘Very well, we’ll come back.’

‘Oh, you needn’t if you don’t want to. I must say it’s rather pleasant out here. But you can’t have had any dinner, Miss Farland.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘Nonsense. Come back inside and let’s see what mine host can contrive. I think Miss Vane and I may need a little longer to recover from the lamb. _Dona nobis pacem_.’

She looked dismayed. ‘Oh dear! I’ve spoilt your evening.’

‘Not at all. You’ve enlivened it enormously. Really, we can’t let you go home hungry.’

Miss Farland looked from Wimsey to Harriet, and, still rather reluctantly, nodded.

Ettore, who was well used to parties growing and shrinking and demanding unconventional selections of items from the menu, let the women back in through the kitchen door, and produced another chair and a huge bowl of minestrone soup. This Miss Farland pronounced delicious. Wimsey ordered a bottle of the Sant’Anna and found it a great improvement on its predecessor. He waited for the level of soup in Miss Farland’s bowl to drop significantly before asking, ‘So how long were you working for Pocock and Gardner?’

She laughed – a low, impressed, chuckle. ‘Just over a month. How did you know?’

‘Because nobody else could have done it, and you couldn’t have done it anywhere else. Well, as Miss Vane observed when we heard Mr Hurthill’s half of the story, the weak spot had to come somewhere between the sealing of the parcel and the manuscript’s turning up on Mr Pocock’s desk. If we rule out the Post Office – I dare say it isn’t sea-green incorruptible, but a wholesale switch seemed rather difficult to manage – that only leaves the publishers. And I couldn’t imagine that the great Maxim Pocock would open his own post.’

Miss Farland laughed. ‘Indeed. Even post from such a star as George Hurthill. And of course it didn’t _look_ like George Hurthill’s latest manuscript, because he never usually packed them up. I think the staff at Pocock and Gardner must have known my handwriting by then, but they wouldn’t know George’s. He used to have me type his correspondence as well as his manuscripts.’

‘And did you go to Pocock and Gardner with that in mind?’

‘It was pure chance, really. I took the job to see if I could stick it. I’d been considering that for a while anyway – I trained in shorthand and typing before I went to live with George – and then I saw the advert. I thought it would be interesting to see what it was like from the other side. It was always going to be a temporary thing – I was covering for someone whose mother was ill, and in fact the poor woman died after three weeks, and the daughter came back to the office after the funeral. As I say, it was pure chance that George’s – _our_ – new typescript came in on a day when I happened to be sorting the post.’ She glanced defiantly at both of them. ‘It was dishonest, I know, but they still have the new Hurthill novel. They’d only need somebody to type it.’

‘So it was after you’d left that Pocock finally took it upon himself to ask Hurthill where his novel had got to, to which he received a no doubt ill-mannered response to the effect that he’d had it weeks ago.’

‘Yes, and I’d imagine they turned the office upside down looking for it.’

‘And you had kept the manuscript.’

‘Yes.’ She looked at Harriet. ‘You’ll understand, Miss Vane. I needed to have it with me to remind me why I’d gone, to stop me thinking that it hadn’t been as bad as all that. Afterwards, of course, I was glad I did. I put the typescript in my drawer, ran home at lunchtime, and picked up the original. That went into the basket for reading – though I added a page in the middle, in shorthand, explaining how it came to look the way it did. After that it would be Mr Pocock’s business what he did about it. I can’t imagine he’d have cared, so long as George found someone else to polish his work for him.’

Wimsey asked, ‘So why were you going to meet him tonight? Were you going to go back to him, or were you going to give him his congé?’

‘I don’t know. I was going to see what he had to say to me.’ She looked from one to the other, her expression earnest. ‘You see, the one thing that that month at Pocock and Gardner showed me was that I _have_ to write. It was driving me distracted, seeing all those manuscripts flooding in and being simply too exhausted in the evenings to do anything of my own. And I was beginning to think that it might be worth putting up with George for the sake of what we wrote. Because after all, if the thing’s worth reading, does it really matter whose name’s on the front?’

Harriet, who had her own opinions on the subject, measured out a smile. Wimsey raised his eyebrows. Miss Farland continued, ‘I think that either way I’d have ended up here again, because I’d get fed up with it again, but for the moment...’

‘I wonder,’ Wimsey said suddenly, ‘whether you’d be interested in working for an agency. You might find some more stimulating work more agreeable, and you wouldn’t be needed all the time, so you’d be able to write in between assignments.’ He fumbled for a card, uncapped a pen, and wrote an address on the back. ‘I take a personal interest in this firm. Perfectly respectable, I assure you, but without the monotony that word usually implies. Think about it.’

She looked unconvinced, but intrigued. ‘Thank you. I will.’ She tucked the card into her pocket. ‘And I really mustn’t take up any more of your evening. You’ve been so kind. Both of you.’

‘Then let us find you a cab. No, not at all. A pleasure, I assure you.’

The place had emptied considerably, and this time the path was unimpeded. They all three went up the narrow staircase to the pavement. A cab was procured and Miss Farland, grateful and embarrassed, helped into it.

As it drove away, Wimsey turned back to Harriet. ‘And now…?’

Harriet paused, considering. The night was beautiful, but chilly, and she felt disinclined to be bundled into a taxi herself. ‘It seems a pity to finish here,’ she said. She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. ‘You may not believe it, but Bella does a rather good zabaglione.’


End file.
